Death Climbs a Tree (15 page)

“Of course. You touch the car? Reach in through that broken window to take his pulse?”

“Yes, sir,” said the first man. “But he'd already stopped bleeding. So we called you instead of the EMTs.”

“Didn't even check his ID yet,” said the second.

“Anybody go over on the passenger side?”

The deputies looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Good.” He took shots of the ground all around the car. “I don't see much, but you never know.” Then he beckoned to Fred. “Come look in this side, would you?”

Fred went over and stared down into the SUV. A small, round stone with markings like the ones on the Petoskey stone Joan had found stood out against the dark blue floor mat. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

Henshaw was snapping pictures. “Yup.”

Even at this distance and through the closed window, Fred could see a spot of what looked like blood on the stone.

*   *   *

Joan arrived at the woods in a car filled with the irresistible fragrance of Andrew's favorite cookies. So far she'd taste tested only two of them, unless you counted the broken ones, which she didn't. She'd always considered broken cookies low-calorie food. At the last minute, as a nod to good nutrition, she had added a bag of Fuji apples to her basket. She suspected Andrew's supporters tended toward pizza rather than fresh fruit or vegetables.

That must be one of them now. A skinny man with a scrawny mustache and a ponytail was pushing a ratty old bike out of the clearing. When she pulled even with him, she recognized him as Matt Skirvin, who was playing percussion for the children's concert. Or would, if he showed up. She never knew about Matt. He must have volunteered when Sylvia asked the orchestra for help. But he was still here for Andrew—she had to give him points for that.

“Hi, Matt.”

“Joan, good to see you. I can't stay—just stopped to check on Andrew. He seems to be doing okay up there.”

“Thanks.”

He reached the road, gave her a wave, and pedaled off.

The clearing was empty now, the ground even more deeply rutted than she remembered. She picked her way across the ruts. Tom Walcher must have found someplace he considered safer to store his equipment. She supposed that meant he'd repaired the EFF damage—where could he have found a tow truck big enough to haul a bulldozer out of there?

She was relieved that Andrew wouldn't be on night duty anymore. How could Fred even have asked him to do such a thing?

“Mom!” His voice floated high above her.

She shielded her eyes and looked up into the sun. For the first time, Andrew wasn't sitting or lying on the platform but standing tall, hands to his mouth.

She waved the arm that wasn't carrying the basket. “Hi, Andrew!”

Her cell phone rang. She fished it out of the basket. “What's up, Mom?” he said into her ear.

“Nothing much. I brought you a little food.”

“Thanks.” He let down his own basket, and she transferred the apples and cookies to it, valiantly resisting the temptation to snitch one more cookie. She watched them rise safely out of her reach and was relieved to see Andrew sit down to unload them.

“Oh, wow, this is great!” His words slurred with the unmistakable sound of a full mouth. “And fresh fruit!”

“Glad you like them.”

“I have a lot of time up here to do nothing,” he said. “Kind of like being stranded on a desert island—I keep thinking of food I don't have and can't get. I'm not hungry, but even pizza gets a little old. I'll make these last.”

“You know where to find me.”

His voice changed from appreciative to resentful. “Now you're on my case, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“Fred keeps trying to talk me down.”

Glad to hear it, Joan backpedaled. “You'll have to work that out with him. I've told you how I feel, but I wasn't trying anything. I only meant you could call me if you run out of cookies—or anything else, for that matter.”

“Thanks, Mom. I didn't mean to jump down your throat. So, what's going on in the outside world?”

“Don't you have a radio?”

“I mean ordinary stuff.”

“Not much. Fred's working overtime, but what else is new?”

“On Sylvia?”

“Yes. The mayor's putting on the pressure.”

“So you're bored enough to make cookies.”

“In between coming up with a string quartet for Sylvia's funeral. Her sister asked Alex, who dumped it on me. But for a change, she has a reason.”

“She needs a reason?”

“Doesn't seem that way, does it? But she's fallen for a man.”

“A man? Who's going to fall for Alex?”

“That's what I thought—she says he's teaching her line dancing, for heaven's sake.”

He chuckled into her ear. “Maybe if she's not so frustrated, she'll let up on you guys.”

“Don't count on it. Besides, when he's had enough of her, I'm afraid we'll pay.” Her neck was beginning to ache from peering up at the platform at such a steep angle. She'd have to lean against something next time, if she wanted to carry on a conversation with him. “I'd better go before I get a crick in my neck.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Sure.” Then she heard a car. Turning, she couldn't see beyond the clearing. “Andrew, can you see who that is?”

“It's Fred,” he said, just before the Chevy pulled into the clearing and stopped beside hers. “Did he know you were coming?”

“No, but he does now.”

Fred strode across the clearing and into the woods. Giving her scarcely a glance, he reached for her cell phone. “Andrew, you've got to come down.”

Joan couldn't hear Andrew's answer, but Fred's face gave her the general idea.

“Because we've had another one, that's why.”

“Another what?” she said.

“Another murder out here trying to look like an accident. An SUV ran off the road into a tree.”

Overhead, Andrew waved his free arm.

“Because we found another Petoskey stone, the kind of stone your mom found near the tree.”

Andrew was gesticulating again.

“This stone was inside the car. Looks as if someone shot it at him, made him crash into the tree.”

“Oh, Fred, no!” Joan said.

“That's not for public consumption, though,” Fred said into the phone. He nodded. “Right. We don't want this guy to know what we have on him. And the victim is Herschel Vint. Yes, the DNR man. You heard him, too?” He was looking up at Andrew. “Whoever did it, or why, we can't overlook the connection to these woods, and maybe, even probably, to Sylvia's death. You're at terrible risk up there, son.”

All Joan's worries flooded back. Until now she'd tried to tell herself that the motive for shooting Sylvia must have been personal. Something to do with her, not with the woods or with Andrew. But whoever went after Vint, who had practically endorsed the tree sitters, had to have reasons connected to the woods or to the construction project that would destroy them.

Andrew had said he didn't want to die, but this was a cause worth dying for. Was it a cause worth giving her son for? How could he be so brave when she felt so wimpy? Or was he? Had he, too, been in denial? Would he welcome Fred's authority now? Should she beg him to come down?

“If we have to haul you down, it may kill the tree, and the trees around it, sooner than the construction crew would,” Fred was saying. “You've made your point. Can't you see how much you're worrying your mother?”

Below the belt, Fred, Joan thought, but if it works, I'm glad you said it.

“I can't stay and argue.” Thrusting the phone at Joan, Fred looked up one more time. Then he turned his back on them both and made his way back across the rutted clearing.

Was it her imagination, or were his shoulders sagging? She put the phone to her ear.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” Andrew said, and broke the connection.

Joan called his number back, but after several rings, she gave up. Churning inside, she carried her empty basket back to the car. On the road home, she expected to come across the wrecked SUV, but she didn't see so much as broken glass. It must have happened past the turnoff to the woods. No point in going to gawk. She'd only be in the way.

All the way home, she tried to persuade herself that Fred was wrong. The only connections between Herschel Vint's death and Sylvia's were the Petoskey stones and where they happened. If someone out there with a stash of Petoskey stones was using them to aim at people, didn't it suggest a kid messing around in the woods, as the man at the center said he had done as a child? Who knew how many people this young woodsman had used for target practice or how often he had missed?

If there was such a kid, she wondered how he must be feeling now. Guilty? Proud? Both, she thought, all mixed up together.

Would two deaths convince him that it was time to stop? Or would the thrill of it all tempt him to take potshots at Andrew next, if he hadn't already? If he'd hit Sylvia, he was bound to connect with Andrew eventually. Once had been enough for Sylvia.

15

Fred's thoughts were running in a different direction as he drove to meet Sheriff Newt Inman, who'd finally called him. Although the call from the woman who thought she'd seen lights in the woods hadn't inspired the sheriff to give up his day of rest, the coroner's request to investigate a possible homicide near those very woods had. He'd leave the Vint case long enough to join Fred in checking out the woman's story, he said, but he doubted that it would come to anything. If it did, Fred could do the follow-up. The woods were, after all, inside the city.

Fred couldn't help suspecting a connection to Vint and to Sylvia. Tenuous, maybe, but it made sense to him.

Andrew had seen the lights from his perch. Had Sylvia? And had something, maybe the glint of her binoculars, given away her location to what Fred suspected were people manufacturing methamphetamine in one of the underground limestone caves dotted around this karst land? A perfect hiding place for a meth lab. Or it soon would be, when the trees were leafed out. Already, a green haze suggested they wouldn't wait much longer.

If not a meth lab, then some other illegal activity, Fred was sure. And when Herschel Vint, working for the state, had come too close, he, too, had been eliminated. Would Andrew be next? When would the risk to him in forcing him down be less than the risk of leaving him where he was?

But Fred hadn't told the sheriff all his concerns, much less floated any theories he couldn't back up. Persuading him to bring his experience with meth labs to bear on whatever was going on in Yocum's Woods would do for the moment.

When Fred pulled up, Sheriff Inman was waiting in Patricia Nikirk's long driveway, his car facing the road, motor running. Driver's side to driver's side, they rolled down their windows.

“Newt.”

“Fred.”

“You talk to her yet?”

“Thought I'd wait for you. Give her a good look at me.” Inman removed his hat and sunglasses. As dark as Fred was blond, Inman still had a full head of wavy hair at forty-something, a trim waistline, and a sharp jawline.

A curtain flicked in the window of the small cinder block house. “She sees us,” Fred said. “Let's go.”

The door opened before they could knock.

“You took your time coming.” Wearing jeans and lace-up boots, the wiry little woman in the doorway looked ready to lead them into the woods. She also looked to be about seventy-five. She didn't invite them in.

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” Inman said. “We had a fatality on the road.”

She sniffed. “Damn drunk drivers. Carry on all hours of the night. Saturday night's always the worst.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Inman was letting her assume that he'd meant last night.

“No witnesses? That would surprise me. People on this road are too damn nosy, if you ask me.”

“We haven't found anyone yet. You didn't hear the crash?”

“All the other racket they make, I don't know how I could.”

Fred doubted there had been much other racket on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

“I take it you know your neighbors farther down this road?” Inman said.

“Aren't many past me. That Jim Chandler won't be much help.”

“Oh?”

“Man's a womanizer. Always in and out with some woman, usually on the pudgy side, like the one he had last night.” She shook her head. “No accounting for taste.”

Right, Fred thought. Alex wouldn't be mine. And if Patricia Nikirk is right about Chandler's womanizing, Alex is in for a disappointment.

Mrs. Nikirk eyed Inman's lean physique and ran her hands down her own trim jeans. “But that's not what you come about.”

“No, ma'am. I'm Sheriff Inman, and—”

“I know who you are. I didn't vote for you.” Crossing her arms across her flat chest, she dared him to make something of it.

“And this is Lieutenant Lundquist, of the Oliver Police,” he went on in the same bland voice. “He says you've been seeing lights in the woods. Can you tell me about them?”

“Not much more to tell than I told the police last night.” She nodded in Fred's direction. “These lanterns or flashlights or whatever they are, they meander through the woods toward that old cave we used to play in. Then they disappear. Directly, they come back out. I don't know what they've got stashed in the cave, but whatever it is, they don't want people to see 'em going in and out. I figure that's why they do it of a night.”

“You've seen them before last night?” Inman asked.

“Sure. Thought it wasn't none of my business. But when the mayor asked people to call last night if they knew anything about Yocum's Woods and said it might have to do with that poor girl killed sitting up in the tree, I decided it was my bounden duty.”